Section introduction. The author analyzes the conception of social and cultural dynamics, elaborated by A.S. Akhiezer. It is shown that this conception can be applied to the explanation of a number of important social and cultural concepts: democracy and social justice. In this regard, the author examines several contemporary challenges such as the challenges of uncertainty, of universal digitalization, of radical transformation of human body and mind by new technologies. The author shows also that new social and economic challenges to understanding equality and non-equality lead to search for mediation between liberal and socialist projects.

Explanation of inversions in Russian history causes major conceptual problems. The traditionally used conceptual apparatus and its theoretical schemes does not seem to really “grasp” this reality, at best, it only describes the Russian reality to some extent. It simply fails to capture the nature and mechanisms that lie in the specifics of Russian society and its dynamics. Hence, there are widespread conclusions about “pathology,” historical “rut,” constant matrix, and endless reproduction of the “predetermined” characteristics of social life in Russia. However, expanding the conceptual apparatus with a constructive approach, combined with a specific historical approach, makes it possible to single out more than one agent of modernization processes (political elite, merged with state authorities), but at least two - authority and society taken discreetly. From this point of view, the inverse nature of Russian modernization has two causes. One of these is social, associated with the peculiarities of Russian society, where underdeveloped social forces are dominated by the imperious will. The second cause is related to modernization attempts based on external historical experience. However, due to the former cause, these attempts turn out to be premature and ill-conceived, giving rise to new conflicts and deformations in society. Both causes are complementary and intertwined. At the same time, there are general civilizational processes, such as urbanization and formation of a mass society, modernization processes in Russian society, including the formation of national identity. This creates prerequisites for a qualitative change in the development of society. If the main factors of inversion “from top down” are hasty and imitative, then doing things “from bottom up” presupposes slow development of the middle class, which, nevertheless, creates conditions for real mediation.

The article discusses the explanatory potential of the idea of historical cyclicity and its role in the modern theories of social development. The historical cyclicity is considered as a paradigm for modeling historical reality that provides the unity of the past-present-future in the historical movement of humanity. The problem is reviewed in the framework of the socio-philosophical interpretation of historical process, which presumes that the historical process has points of bifurcation, interruptions in its gradualness and is accompanied by a change of social ideals, moral priorities, spiritual values and models of social practice. In this regard, the author refers to A.S. Akhiezer’s study Russia: A Criticique of Historical Experience, to his interpretation of cyclicity as a “pulsation” of the mass characteristics of society in the periods of the repetitions in history, the periods of “movements in the opposite direction.” The author demonstrates that each time in such periods the emergence of dual oppositions takes place. In this regard, it is important to use critical reflection, which provides an understanding of the situation through the dialogue of oppositions and assists to avoid the absolutization of polarities in assessments of cultural phenomena. In other words, the critical reflection provide a reconciliation based on mutual understanding of common cultural and moral values and norms. This reconciliation is a mediation, way out of social and cultural confrontation. The author argues that the historical development is of complex nature and cannot be reduced to rectilinear motion. Any social system does not have an ultimate finish, even if a system is at the stage of its decline. Thus, any civilization retains elements of the old cultures, includes them in the present and remains open to the future. The author concludes that there is a certain cultural and historical symmetry between the spiritual life of society and its historical cycles. Therefore, the meaning of cyclicity as a historical phenomenon can be considered only in the unity of all the components (social, economic, political, moral, religious and cultural) of historical process. Such an understanding is achieved through the joint efforts of philosophers, historians, economists, political scientists and cultural researchers.

This article discusses the phenomenon of destructive tension. This concept is new for domestic and world humanitarian science. Thanks to the works of A. Akhiezer and his followers, the concept of “constructive tension” is widely known. This concept is intended to represent any culture as a dual opposition, the two poles of which demonstrate its desirable and undesirable state, and the vector of tension, stretched from undesirable to desirable, means socio-cultural constructiveness, ensuring the integrity and identity of culture. Socio-cultural mechanisms - inversion and mediation -support the constructive tension of culture and its progressive development. No less important for culture is its destructive tension, indicating a crisis of constructiveness, the growth of disorganization of culture and society, the threats of catastrophic processes. The indicator of the socio-cultural crisis is the clash and struggle between the mechanisms of constructive tension, that is, between inversion and mediation, which are mutually exclusive. They are joined by mechanisms of a destructive nature - eristic and “splitting of meanings,” which are further development of mechanisms of constructive tension in adverse conditions. The destructive tension of culture manifests itself in the contradictory interaction of binary and ternary structures, which are incompatible in principle. Dialogue between them is impossible; as a result of their interaction, the birth of a new socio-cultural result is impossible. The destructive tension of culture is an omen of the decline, destruction and the death of civilization. The reduce of the level of tension leads to the fall of destructiveness and the return of culture to the channel of constructive tension. Another possibility of overcoming destructiveness is transcendental tension, that is a kind of departure of the subject of culture from the dilemma of its constructiveness and destructiveness.

This article is a response to the Russian scholar A.S. Akhiezer’s concern regarding the ability of the new Russian government to make conclusions based on his magnum opus Russia: A Critique of Historical Experience. The article undergoes philosophical reflection on the results of an academic study of the views of various sectors of Russian population on the work of public administration. The theoretical and methodological basis of the study is Akhiezer’s concept of historical process of oscillations between the state of disorder (divide) and the restoration of social order (harmony) in society. The author considers the fulfillment of the “civil contract” between the government and society as an indicator of the social order and the government’s capability to overcome external and internal challenges. It turned out that the study was conducted in the period when the Russian government made, as A.S. Akhiezer called them, “lame decisions,” and the people raised concern about the correctness of the country’s policy. Evidence of this is the growing mistrust of Russians in the work of central and regional administrations, which is partially caused by the recent deterioration of living standards and by the implementation of the not popular reform that increased the retirement age in Russia. The sociological approach to the study of the problems of unity and divide in Russian society presumes the correlation between the actions of public administration and the expectations of the population of various Russian regions with different levels of socio-cultural modernization. Thus, this approach provides an opportunity to explain the specifics of socio-cultural processes in some Russian regions. The author concludes that it is necessary to take into account the philosophical and sociological research on the theory of historical development in order to reform all the levels of public administration and to avoid a new social divide in Russia.

The article examines the theoretical and philosophical aspects of the problem of merging power and property using the example of modern Russia. The author’s methodological approach is based on A.S. Akhiezer’s conception of the philosophy of history and social development. Thus, the merging of power and property is considered as a factor that blocks the development of a country. The author introduces the concept of “power-property-administration” syncretism and uses this concept to explain the thinking and actions of the leaders of perestroika and liberal-democratic reforms in Russia in the 1980-1990s. The article propose to consider the efforts to disassociate the “power-property-administration ”syncretism as a continuation of the idea of separation of powers, which was developed by West European democratic thinkers J. Locke and C.-L. Montesquieu as well as by the “founding fathers” of the U.S. Constitution (A. Hamilton, J. Madison and J. Jay). Meanwhile, the classical Western conceptions of democratic reforms do not take into account that the separation of political powers is not sufficient; it is also necessary to institutionalize the relationship between political power and economic power. Thus, A.S. Akhiezer’s methodology for the analysis of historical experience is based on taking into account the totality of all factors: political, economic, social and cultural phenomena. For example, the monopoly is interpreted by Akhiezer not only as an economic but also as a social and historical phenomenon, which originated even in the early stages of human history. The author concludes that, using such concepts of Akhiezer’s socio-cultural theory as “collusion,” “divide” and “mediation,” it is possible to develop a strategy and tactics for overcoming the “power-property-administration” syncretism and to conduct broad political reforms that will establish a dialogue between government and society.

The article is a response to the calls for a comprehensive understanding of the nature of monstrosity, that is, those phenomena that are not amenable to empirical observation but are increasingly attracting scholarly interest. It is shown how the monster can be conceptualized as an object of culture of human imagination, i.e., in the form of works created by a culture in order to constitute its own identity, as well as in terms of behavior and practical actions through which they appear and can be discussed from a moral point of view. Admitting the importance of understanding of monstrosity within the humanities and social sciences, it is necessary to note a connection of this phenomenon with philosophy as something constantly emerging and associated with liminal zones. The author considers designations that are often used as synonyms for monstrosity and determines its specific nature. The article postulates that philosophy tries to conceptualize how a person is attracted by the world with its monstrosity, which is not just a component of being but its inherent nature. Moreover, as it deals with monstrosity, philosophy itself acquires a monstrous nature; in this sense, it cannot not be a creative activity of a universal character. In conclusion, it is stated that the philosophical understanding of monstrosity is critically important, since philosophy postulates foundations that are always monstrous in one way or another. It is also noted that the natural-scientific origins of the study of monstrosity have a philosophical orientation, since they address the fundamental question - “What is life?” Thus, monstrosity requires constant philosophical reflection on the human nature and life in general, whose boundaries are unstable and elusive.

The article discusses the transition of culture from the space that is typical of the classical picture of the world to the non-classical space and the role of art in this process. The author considers the concepts of “social space,” “cultural space,” cultural time and related media. The “cultural space” in human history is associated with people who supported culture in the cultural space. At first they were shamans, later priests and professional artists. But cultural space and cultural time depend on the stages of language development and the general worldview. A striking example here is the vocabulary of the Hopi tribe, where there was no equivalent for the concept of “time”. We analyzed spaces in Modern times. During this period, technology began dictating the rules to aesthetics more and more persistently. In the 18th century, there appeared a number of technical media and then sensory media. Quantum mechanics and physics, this basis of a new view of the world and space, appeared and established itself in the science of the nineteenth century. But in many ways it was art that had foreshadowed the new view of the world. In the 20th century, the augmented reality (AR) technologies that complement our physical world and also virtual reality (VR) appeared. Virtual reality (VR) transports you to the periphery of the classical physical world, where your find yourself in the power of the subconscious. Virtual space created by technical devices means a phantom space, which is transmitted to man through the senses like vision, hearing, smell, touch, and other factors that contribute to forming a special new world and novel spaces.

Philosophical discussion. The authors discusses the specificity of the meaning-of-life reflection. The article is composed as the dialogue between Kazakhstan and Russian philosophers. The authors consider civilization context of the problem of life meaning as well as aesthetic, ethic and axiological aspects of the mean-ing-of-life searches, paying attention to the history of philosophy. This methodological approach implies the “determination by the future” model. T.G. Leshkevich pays special attention to the problem of ambivalence of meaning-of-life reflection, and S.Y. Kolchigin emphasizes the need for spiritual growth, development of the spiritual and moral principles. Taking into account the Russian and Kazakh material, the authors analyze the typical characteristics of the subjectivity of the 21st century and demonstrate that the moral choice constitute a special of type of self-regulation. The authors note the affinity of the civilizational codes of Russia and Kazakhstan and conclude that the meaning-of-life reflection should bring purpose and value orientations to the life strategies of contemporaries. The meaning of life has to justify human existence and testify that a man is really Homo sapiens.